Father of Lord Rama, Dasharatha was a king that was hailed as the best king in the world and had a reputation that everyone loved him and were fond of him. His rule was the best and he would often do extraordinary things for the welfare of the people. Everyone was happy in the kingdom. However, Dasharatha and his queens felt really sad and were upset by the fact that there was no heir to carry forward the legacy of the king. They tried several times to no avail. Finally, Dasharatha was so worried about this that he expressed his worries and anxiety to Vashista. Vashishta was the court head priest and he would know the solution to impress the divine. As expected, Vashishta advised Dasharatha to visit sage Rishyashringa and perform the holy Ashwamedha Yagna to get sons.
Dasharatha immediately made arrangements to visit Rishyashringa in his kingdom and do what Vashishta advised. Upon reaching the kingdom of Anga, he met Ramapada to take his blessings and consent to perform the holy yagna under the guidance of his son-in-law. Ramapada felt very fortunate and lucky to have Dasharatha come to him and he immediately agreed. Dasharatha then visited Rishyashringa and Rishyashringa was ready to perform the holy ritual. In order to perform the Yagna, preparation of one full year had to be done by Dasharatha to be eligible to sit in the Yagna and perform it. Dasharatha returned to Ayodhya and started the preparations.
One year passed and now each and every arrangement was done to welcome Rishyashringa as the chief priest and thousands of other Brahmins and priests were present in the kingdom. Without further ado, Dasharatha made sure that everything was ready and thus the Yagna was started. The horse was made to wander for a full year until the day of Yagna. Finally, it was sacrificed in a holy fire where all the Gods were remembered. Indra was worried about Ravana who was ruling over Lanka and creating havoc in heaven as he had received the boon of invincibility from Shiva and celestial weapons from Brahma. Brahma replied that the child born to Dasharatha would be an avatar of Vishnu and would kill the demon.
Just as the Gods wished, a messenger of Lord Prajapati came to life from the fire. He instructed Dasharatha that he soon would have four sons- Lord Rama, the slayer of Ravana, Bharat – the king of justice, and Lakshmana & Shatrugna – the warrior twins. He then told Dasharatha to feed his wives the holy dessert that they had offered in the Yagna. Dasharatha bowed to the messenger and paid his respects. He then went ahead to the wives and offered the desert to his queen.
Kausalya, the head queen took half of the dessert. Sumitra took ¼ of the dessert and Kaikeyi took ⅛ of the dessert. The vessel was passed again to Sumitra who ate the remaining dessert. Thus, Kausalya gave birth to Rama, Sumitra gave birth to Laxmana and Shatrughan, while Kaikeyi gave birth to Laxman.
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Interesting and well researched. Even I am writing a series on Vaidehi